Panel proposes $40 million annually to protect forests, sprawl
Copyright 2000 Associated Press
December 25, 2000
RICHMOND, Va. - A legislative commission wants Virginia to spend about $40 million a year to protect forests, preserve farms and help tame suburban sprawl.
"When you ask people what are the things they want the state to try to do more about, you hear the issues of sprawl and land conservation, particularly farmland conservation," said state Sen. Bill Bolling, R-Hanover, chairman of the Commission on the Future of Virginia's Environment.
The panel voted last week to support legislation to establish, for the first time in Virginia, a steady source of money to protect undeveloped land.
The money would come from the so-called recordation tax, paid by land and home buyers. Virginia gets about $150 million a year from the tax. The commission is proposing to set aside $40 million of that money each year for buying land or development rights.
Six months ago, Gov. Jim Gilmore joined his counterparts from Maryland and Pennsylvania in pledging to protect 20 percent of the land in the Chesapeake Bay watershed by 2010.
Under the agreement, Virginia would preserve 300,000 to 400,000 acres, Bolling said. "If you don't act to preserve that land now, 10 years from now it will be gone. It will be residential development, it will be shopping centers or it will be office parks or whatever. This is kind of a critical time to do it."
The General Assembly agreed last session to spend $12.4 million over two years to preserve open lands. However, the budget Gilmore proposed last week would erase that second year of funding, taking $6.2 million from the land-protection total.
Gilmore's action proves the need for a permanent source of money for land conservation, said Nikki Rovner, director of governmental relations for the Virginia chapter of The Nature Conservancy, which leads an alliance of conservation groups lobbying for increased protection of open lands.
Virginia is behind in protecting its open lands, Rovner said. From 1992-99, Maryland spent $400 million on land conservation, Pennsylvania spent $200 million and Virginia spent $55 million.
The Virginia Association of Realtors opposes taking the land-protection money from the recordation tax, said Cal Whitehead, a legislative specialist with the group.
Open lands and pretty views would benefit everyone, so everyone should pay to protect them, Whitehead said. And that means the money should come from the state's general fund, he said.